


The Love Lost to Time

by retro_tinlizzy



Series: The Love Lost to Time [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-03-17 10:21:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18963304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retro_tinlizzy/pseuds/retro_tinlizzy
Summary: Merlin has been waiting a very long time.  He let Arthur go with a vague promise of the man coming back when Arthur's presence was needed.  For centuries, Merlin has walked by the same field every day with the hope of someone showing up.  When that special someone finally makes an appearance, Arthur has a lot of catching up to do and Merlin steps in as the teacher.





	1. Chapter 1

Merlin walked by the field filled with crows and cows.  There was nothing there to witness, just like there had never been anything there.  No form or figure ever stood amid the crows waiting for him, no one to tell him that his time of waiting was over and that he would finally have centuries of waiting repaid by the love he had so missed.  Losing the love of his life - with the promise of that love one day returning - was the worst punishment the universe had ever dealt to Merlin.

  
Each day before work, Merlin would stand here in front of the pasture and study the formation of the flock.  He hoped that somehow the crows were sending him a covert message and maybe they would reveal a key detail that he missed.  Merlin tried every form of communication throughout the ages to reach through the veil, trying to reach out to Arthur with some slight amount of hope.  Thumbing through the picture on his phone of the differing crow formations, Merlin wondered again if it was possible to email souls through the veil.  But even if such a formation could be formed between two people who existed now, the connection would be meaningless to Arthur.  And Merlin would be left alone.  Again.

  
“Merlin!  Are ya on your way to work?”  
He turned towards the voice, pushing the phone back into his pocket to hide the pictures.  
“Yes, Mary.  Just stopping off to admire the field this morning and then I’ll be right behind you into the shop.”

  
“Are ya taking more photos of those crows, like you have on the other mornings?  From what Betsy said to me, you have already enough of those to publish a book of landscapes covered in crows, but I don’t know why you’d want to do that.”  
Merlin looked at her curious expression, wondering what excuse he had told to Betsy Ringles for this piece of gossip to be spread around town.

“Pardon if I don’t understand what you're asking, but I’m not sure what you mean?”  
“Oh Merlin, you shouldn’t be so nervous about this.  Looking to publish a book of countryside scenery is a very admirable task and surely would be popular across the audiences.  I just don’t know why you’re focusing on crows when there’s so many other subject matters.”

  
Ah. That was the story that he told to the old bitty pressing into his matters.  She had caught him taking pictures of the field one morning and the natural lie of course was to say he was an avid nature photographer.  And when she pressed for the reasoning, Merlin had scrambled to explain that he was planning to publish a book of crows on the natural landscape.  A story that was so vague and obscure that it was perfectly believable for the small town gossip old Miss Ringles regularly engaged in.

  
“I just have a particular fascination for crows.”  Merlin looked down at his feet while gathering more of an explanation and then turned his head back to his employer to say, “I find that the formations the flocks fall into are rather mystical and representative of more.”

  
It wasn’t a lie.  That is what he thought of the crows, that they would be their proper symbols of magic and one day bring him the right piece of information.  But that wasn’t something that he would usually be telling someone.  No one in these days believed in magic except something possessed by school children in Scotland.  The sort of magic that had popularized itself in popular culture was nothing like what Merlin had dealt with in his youth and surely those book characters didn’t know the terror of being beheaded.  

  
“You’re an odd sort of bird, Merlin.  Though I guess if your parents thought it fit to give you a name like that…”

  
The old woman trailed off like Mary always did, leading him along the narrow path beside the road to the shop.  Merlin had actually worked here through several centuries of shopkeepers, never leaving the presence of the area just in case Arthur might pop up.  And there had been several occasions when he theorized that his friend might have risen from the beyond.  There had been two, full world wars for god’s sake.  Surely even pompous Arthur could justify a quick trip across the veil to help England in its time of great trouble.

  
“Merlin, if you can stop your daydreaming for a moment, there’s a customer out there that needs serving.  And he’s quite the looker.”

  
Yet another part of Mary that Merlin had to brush off on the day to day basis - her insistence on match making.  As he had told her before, he had a perfectly nice and close bloke that one day would be something more, just as soon as he made it out of the Royal Army.  Merlin was quite happy to wait at home for someone he loved and didn’t need to get connections with any of Mary’s nephews or sailors she knew from the shipments down at the docks.  Even as his declines went on, her pressings continued with the recommendation that he should have a bit of fun while ‘his boy’ was away in the service.

  
“A bit of fun never hurt anyone, Merlin.  It’s 2018 and you’re barely past twenty.  You should be going out and having a good time, not locking yourself away for someone you haven’t even seen for an entire tour.”  
If only she had known just how long that tour was.  
A sharp “Merlin!” from the other room reminded him of the waiting customer before him, and Merlin quickly set about taking the order for the next week of groceries.  He quickly fell into the daily routine and pushed his day dreams out of the way until he could be free of the shop.


	2. Chapter 2

At a sharp 5 o’clock, Mary’s shop closed its door for the day and he spent only another thirty minutes prepping for the next day.  Today was Friday which tomorrow was Saturday which meant tomorrow would only be four hours of work.  And then Sunday would mean no work at all, but Merlin would still walk by the field, and he would still be found about town taking pictures of crows.

They really were sending him a message.

Merlin stood in front of the field once more, watching the crows swarm into different parts of the field, obviously after something tasty that they found in the ground.  He grew distracted from their patterns and was absent minded while taping the scene on his phone.  Thinking about what the crows might be having for dinner pushed Merlin to recall what was contained within the small refrigerator at the current moment.  There would be a little bit of many things, probably not enough for a good dinner, but probably enough to justify not going back into town.  It was truthfully only a few minutes walk.  And he would just have to hope that the shoddy restaurant that sold pizza on the corner would be willing to accept him for a moment.

“Merlin, I know you’re studying those birds, but you really should be getting on before the storm comes.”

He hadn’t fully noticed the presence of the person speaking to him until Merlin found a hand on his shoulder.  Merlin turned to find Mary in her after work clothes and her irregular amount of concern for him was noticeable upon her face. 

“Couldn’t have my best shop clerk getting a cold just because he wanted to stand in the rain.”  
Merlin looked between Mary and the slowly graying sky above him, remarking, “Oh, I hadn’t noticed those clouds setting in.  But no need to worry about me, Mary, I’ll be heading on to my cottage in just a few moments.”

The old woman left her hand on Merlin’s shoulder for a second longer and he wondered if she would be making another matchmaker comment.  Or perhaps she would be back to insulting his residence.  The cottage at the edge of the woods wasn’t all that much, but it did hide Merlin away from the world.  It was enough to hold up against the rain and enough to protect the people of the town from bouts of magic. 

There were still the rare moments when he lost control.

“Don’t get too damp, Merlin.”  
That was all Mary said as she walked off.  Once she was completely out of range, with the good knowledge of the kind of ears that bat had, Merlin buried face in his hands.  
“You’re a fucking idiot, Merlin.  You’re a bloody fucking idiot.  You’re standing out here in the goddamn rain looking at fucking crows and pining after a boy that barely loved you in the first place.”

Love.

That was the key worry in his mind.  There had been the slight moments of admitting how much he cared for Arthur in the last seconds he had with his dear friend.  Merlin had been nothing more than a servant to Arthur, but from the tenderness they shared together time and time again, he did believe that Arthur loved him.  And the rarer times that had existed when they shared the most intimate moments of existence.  Those interactions were something that members of the guard had been all too aware of - Lancelot having chatted Merlin up on several different occasions.  There had been plenty of advances from the soldiers that Arthur had toted him in front of.

Why was it that Merlin had fallen for the one man that he couldn’t have?  Even beyond the fact of Arthur being the king, he shouldn’t have felt all of that for his friend.  Even if they had been engaged together.  Merlin had always pushed those ‘incidents’ off to Arthur being thoroughly drunk and just desperate for someone’s attention.  That’s all that it was.  Even if Arthur had said, “I love you”, back in weak sighs as all the life drifted away from his body.

Merlin couldn’t take it anymore.

He jumped over the fence, running out to the lake and staring out to the island.  The one that he theorized Arthur would be jumping up from any century now and with no care for who might hear him, Merlin shouted into the rain.

“I love you, Arthur Pendragon.  You are a bloody bastard and you abandoned me and I don’t know if you ever really cared for me.  But if your pompous ass is listening to me somewhere beyond the goddamn veil, please know that I love you.  I’ve waited all of these years for you and I just…”

Merlin sunk down into mud on his knees, briefly worrying about whatever stains might be left on his trousers.  It didn’t matter to him if he died in the field tonight - he was done.  The police could drag his body out of the field and they could leave Mary to be the one person to identify him and then Merlin would just be free.  Maybe if he died in the field, perished here among the crows that were judging the ever living fuck out him, maybe he would meet Arthur again.

“What am I doing?  I can’t die.”

He knew that.  It was a revelation from a time similarly dark a hundred years before.  When Merlin had found himself so fed up with the world…he had been willing to end it all right then.  
And then suddenly someone was speaking to him, a voice that Merlin was sure he was imagining.  There was no way that they would have come back just because Merlin had finally broken down in a field and given into everything he had wanted for all of this time.

“Merlin?  What are you doing here?”

Before he even realized what was happening, Merlin’s fist had make impact with someone’s jaw.


	3. The Questioning

“You utter son of a bitch.”

Merlin looked down at Arthur on the ground, biting his knuckle so he wouldn’t scream, and studied the slightly bloodied face.  Arthur was dressed in a suit of armor and royal robes - different than the ones Merlin had ‘buried’ him in.  And there were visible scars along his neckline, obvious from the wounds that had been sustained along the way.  Merlin reached out to pull him from the ground but remained silent while bringing Arthur to a standing position.

“You bastard,” Merlin screamed as his fist collided with Arthur’s face again. 

He had just brought his friend from the ground and now had thrown Arthur into the mud once more.  Merlin fell into a straddle on his waists, fists coming down and bringing blood up into Arthur’s cheeks.  The blur went on for a few minutes, ending with Merlin slumping against Arthur’s chest and the familiar, calloused hands wrapping around his waists.

In between coughs, Arthur whispered in his ear, “I missed you too.  And I’m back, my love.”

_My love._

The words stung as Merlin drew Arthur up from the ground once more, frowning at the mud that was covering his tunic.  The rain would wash it away now that it was picking up around them and Merlin realized that they really needed to get out of these conditions.

“Come along to my cottage, Arthur.  You’re getting all damp out here.”

Merlin took up Arthur’s hand, guiding the man through the field and lifting them both over the fence.  He regretted the hurt he had caused Arthur as he saw his friend struggle with the movements.  Why had he jumped so quickly to violence?  And of course Arthur must be in pain in a million ways with the consequence of coming back from the dead.

They walked through the rain in silence, slowly trekking back to Merlin’s little house among the haunting trees.  His fingers slipped down to meet Arthur’s and they curled together while the journey went on.  Arthur leaned into Merlin’s shoulder as he unlocked the door and pulled the two of them inside.  And there they stood in the entry way.  Still silent and now dripping on the rough wooden flooring, Merlin absentmindedly thinking of the water staining the floor.  He would take anything right now to distract his brain from communicating to the lips that wanting to meet with Arthur’s.

“Merlin?”    
As Arthur asked the question, his finger tips trailed up the side of Merlin’s face, wiping away the rain droplets from their walk through the storm.  
“Yeah?”  
“What’s wrong?”

It took all that Merlin had in him at that moment not to cry.  The tears from the field could be disguised by the damage from the rain and the mud that clung to their skin.  There was no reason to be sad now that Arthur was right here in his arms, and that the king’s fingertips were brushing along his jaw.  No realistic reason to be sad, but he could feel the blade turning in his heart.

“You’ve just been away for a long time, Arthur.  There’s been plenty of times when I thought you might come back - when the world was in a lot of trouble and they all needed the defense of a great warrior.”

Arthur didn’t draw back from their embrace.

He drew the two of them to Merlin’s sofa and Merlin tried not to think of having to scrub all of those stains out.  He focused on being in the arms of the person he loved and having to face the music about why the man had finally shown up now.  Was there some other great danger in the world that he wasn’t aware of?

“You’ve called for me before, haven’t you, Merlin?”  
“Yes.  When there were times of trouble and it seemed as if the world might finally end,” Merlin trailed off and felt a shiver rising through his body.  
“And what today did you say to me?”  Arthur dropped his hand from Merlin’s jaw and grabbed on to the fidgeting hands.  “What did you say today that was different than all of the other times?”

It took Merlin a moment to recall what was said today.  In the past, it had been a general amount of cursing and calling out to Arthur with a hope that he might take mercy on the world.  He had always asked for Arthur to come and help the Earth itself, avoiding his own need.  Until today.  When he broke and shouted in pain to admit that he wanted Arthur back.  That he had loved Arthur and never stopped loving the arse, and even needed him.

“Instead of asking you to come back to help everyone, I was selfish and wanted you to come back and help me.  I wanted you.”  Merlin paused and then corrected himself, “I needed you.”

It could have easily been a mistake and at first, Merlin got no reply.  The few seconds of silence decided in his mind that Arthur didn’t want him, and that he had been so selfish in bringing the soul back from the veil.  Merlin was so distracted by his concerns that he didn’t notice the lips that had met his own.  It took him a few seconds more to respond to Arthur, graciously meeting the man before him and slowly slipping his arms around Arthur’s waist.

When they broke apart, Arthur spoke first to say, “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to do that.”  
The lack of self confidence in his heart caused Merlin to ask, “Did you want me before?”

Arthur ran his fingers through Merlin’s short locks, kissing his forehead and whispering a gentle “yes” in his ear.  They fell back into a gentle embrace against the couch, quickly finding each other and making up for all of the lost time.  As some time had passed, Arthur suddenly shifted up from their seating and looked off into space while speaking.

“Merlin, not to distract from the moment but what’s that blinking red light on the ceiling?”

Merlin looked up to the smoke detector and realized that he had a lot of explaining to do.  He could ignore it for now though, passed it off as nothing in his answer to Arthur, and sunk down further into the couch to get as many kisses in as he could manage.


End file.
